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Sunday, 1 January 2012

2 x £6

How much make-up can you get for £6 these days? Well, it depends where you look I guess. Normally that’d be enough to get a full priced lipstick or eyeshadow on the highstreet. In the run-up to Christmas there were lots of special offers to entice me away from my Christmas shopping, and I took advantage of some special offers in Superdrug to come home with these veritable make-up bargains.

First up, Superdrug are (at the time of writing) running an offer for free false eyelashes when you spend £5 or more on Collection 2000 products. In effect this works out at purchasing two full priced products. I picked up a glitter eyeliner and a matte lip cream and chose the natural look eyelashes (there was a choice of two designs; natural or volume lashes), which came to around £6 in total – what a bargain!

The glitter eyeliner has already featured in several posts on this blog as I’ve already become a big fan. All I really have to say about it is that it’s a good quality, great value product so if you like glitter eyeliners this range is definitely worth checking out. The only slight issue with this is that the coloured gel that the glitter is suspended in does stain my skin if worn alone but I’ve been wearing it on top of a normal dark liquid eyeliner and not had any problems with staining. It’s very easy to remove with either normal make-up remover or face wash. In the swatch below I’ve applied two coats which as you can see provides dense, opaque coverage.

The lip cream has a lovely consistency – really smooth and moisturising. It also has a relatively inoffensive, light vanilla scent – which makes a nice change from some of the overpowering fragrances I’ve experienced in some other lip products lately. The colour, coverage and finish are all lovely, so I would be totally in love with this product if it weren’t for the fact that it fades on me really quickly. I haven’t been able to eek out more than a couple of hours’ wear from this so far which is a shame as I really want to like it a lot! I’d love it if anybody has any tips to share on how to get this product to last longer.

I have worn the lashes and they were also comfortable to wear with a nice finish – noticeable in an elegant way and not at all overwhelming. I did have some problems with them poking me in the eye after a few hours but that could be because I didn’t trim them and just wore them as they were in the pack. I’d take a bit more time to fit them to my own lash line next time. I don’t even like wearing mascara too close to the inner corner of my eye normally.

Next up Superdrug are also currently (at the time of writing) running an offer for a free eyeshadow palette with any purchase over £6 from the Accessorize cosmetics range. I’m a big fan of Accessorize cosmetics so I picked up one of their new mascaras which cost exactly £6 and chose the eyeshadow palette in Peony Union Jack. They do the undeniably cutest make-up packaging on the high street.

The quality of the shadows is really OK. There’s no denying that they’re a bit chalky, especially compared to the mono eyeshadows in the Accessorize range which are very creamy, but I really find the colour payoff to be OK to good, and all the shades are definitely useable. The indigo has the poorest colour payoff but I think it could be made to pop over a creamy primer – something along the lines of the Sleek primer palette perhaps.

I really like the Flutter Curl Mascara. I accidentally bought the shade black brown as usually I wear only black mascara (as my eyelashes are black anyway) but this shade is really quite dark anyway. The brush is quite unusual being a multi-layered plastic comb, and is great at defining my lashes (short and sparse). I use it to either brush through several very thin coats of mascara, or turn it on its side to load my lashes with a thick blob of mascara which can then be brushed through to separate the lashes. Oh and the packaging is also ultra-cute; a navy tube covered in pictures of brightly coloured butterflies.

Oh and of course there were make-up bargains a plenty to be had in the post-Christmas sales which I will admit I did indulge in a bit. Plenty of pictures of my newest make-up goodies will be coming to Chilled Pink Grapefruit soon!